The School strike for climate (also known variously as Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate and Youth Strike 4 Climate) is an international movement of school students who are deciding not to attend classes and instead take part in demonstrations to demand action to prevent further global warming and climate change. Publicity and widespread organising began when the climate activist Greta Thunberg staged an action in August of 2018 outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament), holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" ("School strike for the climate").[2][3]

In 2015, an independent group of students invited students around the world to skip school on the first day of COP 21, the UNFCCC Climate Conference. On 30 November, the first day of the conference in Paris, a "Climate Strike" was organized in over 100 countries; over 7004500000000000000♠50,000 people.[4] The movement focused on three demands: 100% clean energy; keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and helping climate refugees.[5]

Inspired by Thunberg, organized school strikes started in November 2018. In Australia, thousands of school students were inspired by Thunberg to strike on Fridays, ignoring Prime Minister Scott Morrison's call for "more learning in schools and less activism".[11] Galvanized by the COP 24 Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, in December student strikes continued at least in 270 cities[10] in countries including Australia, Austria,[12] Belgium, Canada,[13] the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Switzerland,[14][15] the United Kingdom and the United States.[10][16]

In 2019, strikes were organised again in the countries listed above and were organised for the first time in other countries, among them Colombia, New Zealand, and Uganda.[17]

Large mass strikes took place on 17 and 18 January 2019, when at least 7004450000000000000♠45000 students protested in Switzerland and Germany alone, against insufficient policies on global warming.[18][19][20] In several countries, including Germany and the UK, pupils demanded the change of laws to reduce the voting age to 16 so they could influence public elections in favour of the youth.[21][22]

Belgian environment minister for Flanders Joke Schauvliege resigned on 5 February 2019 after falsely claiming the state security agency had evidence that the school strikes in Belgium were a "set‑up".[23]

In England, on 13 February 2019, following the open letters supporting Extinction Rebellion in 2018, 224 academics signed an open letter giving their "full support to the students" attending the School Strike for Climate action.[24][25] Then, on Friday 15 February, more than 60 actions in towns and cities within the United Kingdom took place, with an estimated 7004150000000000000♠15000 strikers taking part.[24][26][27]

On 21 February 2019, the European Union chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, stated intent to spend hundreds of billions of euros on climate change mitigation, amounting to a fourth of the EU budget. He announced this in a speech next to Greta Thunberg, and media credited the school strike movement with this announcement.[29]

On 5 March 2019, 700 German researchers signed a petition in support of the school strikes in that country.[30] This was followed by 7003120000000000000♠1200 researchers in Finland signing a letter, on 11 March 2019, supporting the strikes.[31]

On 15 March 2019, school strikes, urging adults to take responsibility and stop the climate change, began taking place in over 2000 cities worldwide. An estimated 1.4 million pupils, from every continent, not including Antarctica, participated in the events.[32][33][34]

A speech being delivered from the stairs of the Jardin Darcy, in Dijon (Côte-d'Or, Burgundy, France) for the global climate strike on 15 March 2019

On 1 March 2019, 150 students from the global coordination group of the youth-led climate strike (of 15 March), including Thunberg, issued an open letter in The Guardian, saying:[35]

We, the young, are deeply concerned about our future. […] We are the voiceless future of humanity. We will no longer accept this injustice. […] We finally need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It is the biggest threat in human history and we will not accept the world's decision-makers' inaction that threatens our entire civilisation. […] Climate change is already happening. People did die, are dying and will die because of it, but we can and will stop this madness. […] United we will rise until we see climate justice. We demand the world's decision-makers take responsibility and solve this crisis. You have failed us in the past. If you continue failing us in the future, we, the young people, will make change happen by ourselves. The youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.

The day of the Global Climate Strike for the Future was to be the most widespread of strikes, with tens of thousands of children in at least 100 countries and over 35 US states walking out of school, supported by some of the world's biggest environmental groups.[36][37] Leading up to the strike, the website FridaysForFuture.org lists 1659 events planned in 106 countries.[38][39][timeframe?]

In Scotland, city councils of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Highland and Fife gave permission for children to attend the strikes.[40] In Finland parental consent letters were sent to schools[41] and in the Finnish city of Turku the school board proclaimed that children had a constitutional right to take part in the strikes.[42]

On the morning of 15 March in a Guardian guest editorial, titled "Think we should be at school? Today’s climate strike is the biggest lesson of all", school-climate-strikers Thunberg, Anna Taylor, Luisa Neubauer [de], Kyra Gantois, Anuna De Wever [nl], Adélaïde Charlier, Holly Gillibrand and Alexandria Villasenor, reiterated their reasons for striking.[43]

An estimated number of more than a million people in ca. 130 countries demonstrated at about 2200 events worldwide.[1][33] According to organizers, events took place in about 125 countries.[33] In Germany, more than 7005300000000000000♠300000 pupils demonstrated in some 230 cities with more than 7004250000000000000♠25000 in Berlin alone.[44][45]
In Italy more than 7005200000000000000♠200000 students demonstrated, 7005100000000000000♠100000 only in Milan according to the organizers.
In Montreal more than 150 000 attended, Stockholm 7004150000000000000♠15000 to 7004200000000000000♠20000, Melbourne 7004300000000000000♠30000, Brussels 7004300000000000000♠30000, Munich 7003800000000000000♠8000, Paris, London, Washington, Reykjavík, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Tokyo.[33]

In early February 2019, 350 Dutch scientists signed an open letter in support of the school strikes in the Netherlands. The letter reads "On the basis of the facts supplied by climate science, the campaigners are right. That is why we, as scientists, support them."[46]

In Germany a group of more than 7004230000000000000♠23000 scientists founded Scientists for Future (S4F) in support of the factual correctness of the claims formulated by the movement.[47][48][49][50]

On 14 March 2019, the Club of Rome issued an official statement in support of Thunberg and the strikes, urging governments across the world to respond to this call for action and cut global carbon emissions.[51]

The strikes have also been criticised as truancy. Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom criticised the strikes as wasting lesson and teaching time.[52] Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for "more learning and less activism" following the strikes.[53] Australia's Education Minister Dan Tehan suggested that if school students feel strongly about a cause, then they should protest in their own time in the evenings or on weekends.[54]

In New Zealand, there was mixed response from politicians, community leaders, and schools. Students were threatened to be marked as truant by some principals for attending the strike without their parents' or schools' permission.[55]Judith Collins, and several other Members of Parliament were dismissive of the impact of the strike,[56] while Climate Change Minister James Shaw expressed support noting that little attention would be paid to marchers protesting on the weekend.[57][58]

On 15 March, the UN General SecretaryAntónio Guterres embraced the strikers, admitting that "My generation has failed to respond properly to the dramatic challenge of climate change. This is deeply felt by young people. No wonder they are angry." Guterres has already invited world leaders to a UN summit in September 2019 to commit themselves more strongly to the policy framework laid out by the Paris Agreement.[59]

^ abJohn, Tara (13 February 2019). "How teenage girls defied skeptics to build a new climate movement". CNN. Archived from the original on 28 February 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2019. Anna […] Taylor, 17, has taken a leading role in organizing a protest that is expected to see hundreds of students walk out of class across the UK on Friday […] Youth Strike 4 Climate, is planned for more than 40 British towns and cities […] Taylor and co-organizer Vivien "Ivi" Hohmann

^ abWilkinson, Bard (30 November 2018). "Australian school children defy prime minister with climate strike". CNN. Archived from the original on 28 February 2019. Organizers estimated around 15,000 left their classrooms in 30 locations across the country, including Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth […] Friday's protests followed similar protests in Canberra and Hobart earlier this week. […] Central Victoria pupils […] Harriet O'Shea Carre and Milou Albrecht, both 14, penned a call to arms asking fellow school children to join them in protest […] 17-year-old Ruby Walker, a protesting pupil from the state of New South Wales. […] Jean Hinchcliffe, a pupil who spoke at the Sydney rally […] 14-year-old

^ abcdGlenza, Jessica; Evans, Alan; Ellis-Petersen, Hannah; Zhou, Naaman (15 March 2019). "Climate strikes held around the world – as it happened". The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Archived from the original on 16 March 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-16. Over 24 hours of climate action, organizers of the climate strike believe more than 1 million students skipped school on Friday or protest government inaction on climate change. From Australia and New Zealand, to Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America, students from all over the world took to the streets to demand change. Organizers said there were more than 2,000 protests in 125 countries.

^"Près de 33.000 jeunes marchent pour le climat en Belgique" [Nearly 7004330000000000000♠33000 young people march for climate in Belgium]. Le Vif/L'Express (in French). 31 January 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2019. La Ville de Liège avait manifesté son soutien en soulignant qu'aucun élève absent ce jour ne serait sanctionné. [The City of Liège had expressed its support by pointing out that no student absent that day would be sanctioned.]